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by Annie17851



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x23, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 20:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie17851/pseuds/Annie17851
Summary: About two minutes have passed since Dean fell to the ground next to Castiel.





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**Author's Note:**

> My Muse came out of her coma briefly. Sorry for all the angst, this is not a fix-it fic

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Dean doesn’t feel a thing when his knees hit the ground. Doesn’t feel the cool earth through denim. Doesn’t feel the jarring of his bones at the sudden stop or the minute brush of cool air on his exposed skin as gravity pulls him down. Doesn’t even realize Sam has left his side.

 

What he can feel is ice – in his chest, freezing his lungs, stealing his breath. 

 

But then it all comes back in a rush, crippling, and he’s bent over, forehead against the dirt and the breath comes rushing painfully back. His fists are pressing against the sides of his head fiercely, as if he can take the sight before him away by sheer force of will alone.

 

He feels mud on his face, realizes it is of his own making, tears falling into desperate, tiny puddles. He pulls one hand away from his head, reaches out blindly to rest fingers on Castiel’s arm. Castiel’s motionless, still-warm arm. Pulls his forehead away from the coarse earth and dares a look up to examine the angel’s face, sear it into memory because, God, he must never, ever forget.

 

Turns his head to his left and his other hand is reaching out, unbidden, scratching into the blackened marks there, the memory of wings there. That hand scrapes, digs in, forces the damned dirt under his nails, scoops some up and cradles it. Dean sits up on his knees then, right hand smoothing along Castiel’s arm as it releases him. Dean pulls his other hand in to himself slowly, squints in the darkness to see how much wing-scorched earth he has captured, closes his fist then and holds it tightly to his burning, gasping chest. And with that movement, he can’t breathe again, his lungs are fire and ice again and he is going to die if he can’t breathe. He doesn’t care.

 

Then suddenly Sam is there, close over him, hands around his shoulders so tightly, urging calm, and Dean can only gasp out the words that have been reeling around in his head relentlessly.

 

“He went without me.”


End file.
